Tuesday, May 15, 2007

As most of you know (if you don't know... where have you been???) we named our son Zackary. Z-A-C-K-A-R-Y that's Zack for short.

Now I am a child of the 80's and 90's so I grew up with Saved by the Bell. The only Zack I knew of was on that show and his name was spelled Z-A-C-K. So... when we decided on our name that was how I immediately thought to spell it.

In fact, it didn't really dawn on me until AFTER he was born that we had apparently picked the unusual way to spell it. Even on his own website and on this website people spell it Z-A-C-H in the comments. Even though if you look over there... yeah... to your right... do you see it yet? Oh yes, where it says All Zack, all the time.... it is spelled Z-A-C-K people still continue to misspell it.

So since it appears as if I am going to be dealing with this for the rest of his life I would like to know how you all have handled it. Do you or your children have a name that people continually misspell? Do you correct them or just leave it misspelled? What about when it is on paperwork? Do you correct it then?

Feel free to post anonymously if you want to share your name or your children's names but don't want people to know who you are.

8
comments:

They misspell my name all the time... it's ALISON not Alyson or Allison or even ALLYSON. And then there is my middle name LEIGH not Lee...

But we named our son Avishai and forget having people spell it - they can't even say it (and once you hear it I didn't think it was that hard)... so then we just tell them Avi - and they look at us like we're nuts too!

Go figure! I think you can't win either way so I'd correct them (in person or on paperwork) -- on the site I don't think I'd worry...

my name is forever spelled or said wrong. It is Marcia. If someone sees it, they say "Mar-see-ah". If someone hears it, they write Marsha. I also get the stupid Marsha Marsha Marsha thing all the time from the Brady bunch. I correct people who write it for business reasons, otherwise I don't really care, and also answer to the Mar-see-ah if someone new is speaking to me. Sometimes I get someone's name wrong, or forget someone's name and I always feel so silly, that I am really forgiving of someone getting mine wrong. (I've also had to correct myself with Zack's name. I may have forgotten as well, so I apologize)There is a women I work with who I thought was Carla, and she is really Chris, and she calls me Monica. At this point it's so funny to me I don't want to tell her any differently! Snort.

My doctors nurse calls me Kathy, even when she has my name on the chart in her hands. Do I look like a Kathy - or is it Cathy?There is also a lady in town by the name of Linda who looks identical to me so I get called Linda alot. It's funny too cuz I have met her and we DO look alike.To put another twist on this, have you ever introduced yourself to another person and have them freak out cuz they have the same first and last name as you?!? That was one weird experience for me several years ago.

I have to correct people on my name all the time too. It's Cristen. Not Christen, Kristen, Kristin, Christin, or Kriston. Then there's my last name. It has the same amount of letters and doubles as Mississippi. Gr.

I work on the phones, my first name is Caren. I get SO many variations. I have people call me Kara, Terra, Sara, Paris, Pat, Katherine... I know, when you say it to yourself you don't get many of those out of that name, do you? But it's the truth. And in writing EVERYONE spells it Karen. The only time I correct anyone (even if it's those Paris thinkers...) is when it's written down for legal reasons or like my nametag at work. Otherwise it's worthless to say it OVER AND OVER again to those on the phone and the last time I tried to spell it to someone in person I say C, and they thought I said B, so my name was for a day Baron... Funny huh? It's too much of a hastle, you might as well let em think what they want to think!!

My daughter Lily's name gets spelled incorrectly ALL the time. It is especially frustrating because (in my opinion) her name is spelled the traditional and correct way - like the flower. To make matters worse there is another little girl in her pre-school class that spells her name Lilly.

It bugs me to no end and I always correct people who do spell it wrong - nicely, of course - but I just let them know it is L-I-L-Y like the flower. I explained to the teachers why it was so important to me that her name is spelled correctly when they write it on her artwork because she is just learning to spell/write her name.

Also, they had made cute little name cards for the cubbies but had spelled her name Lilly. I kept telling the teachers it was spelled wrong and they replied each time that they were going to be making new ones "soon". After about 6 weeks I finally just ripped the name card off the wall. Lo and behold she had a new one spelled correctly that same day!

My only advice is to as politely as possible let people know "His name is Zack with a "ck" but know that people will still have to be corrected.

I used to think I was being overreactive when people misspelled Lily's name but someone pointed out, "Hey! It's her NAME! It DOES matter!".

I have two son's my oldest's name is Joel and my own father would write cards to "Joe" or call him "Joey" now that he's old enough he will say my name is not JOE it's JO-EL.My youngest's name is Xavier he gets called Javier a lot. We just call him "X" for short.

About Me

My son and I live on a farm in Iowa with a menajarie of otheranimals. On a good day our life runs like a smooth three ringcircus. On a bad day one of the elephants escapes and chargesthe crowd. Please join us in our adventures, just watch whereyou step.